Harry Needs a Hug
by r4ven3
Summary: The title of this one shot is what came to me first, in the wee hours of the morning, and the rest simply (or not so simply) flowed on from there. It's not to be taken too seriously. I hope you enjoy.


_**A/N: This story is for transmissionends64, who appreciates my one shots more than most! Were I so inspired, I'd publish a one shot each weekend, but the muse is fickle, and often rebellious.**_

* * *

Late Friday afternoon - 3 months after Ros Myers' death:

Harry's shouts filter through the closed door and plate glass window of his office, and then moments later the door slides open and Alec and Dimitri slink onto the Grid floor, their heads down, avoiding all eye contact, shame their silent companion.

"He's a happy little bunny today," Beth murmurs to no-one in particular. "I wonder who stole the sunshine from his life?"

"Harry needs a hug," Ruth says, and then realises she'd said it aloud. She drops her eyes, hoping Beth hasn't heard her.

"That's rather ... specific," Beth says, and Ruth can feel her flat mate's eyes on her, willing her to look up.

So Ruth looks up. "Not really. Harry has to shoulder a lot of responsibility." Beth is still watching her, so she clarifies. "He misses Ros Myers more than he's prepared to admit," _and I turned down his marriage proposal, and he was somehow involved in the death of the Home Secretary._ Put like that, Harry has every reason for over-reacting when his team members don't live up to his impossibly high standards. Ruth keeps her head down. She can't look at Beth, not when she feels such a churning in her stomach, resulting from her own guilt, and pain of loss ... and a lifetime's worth of regret.

But she's not the one responsible for Harry's bad mood, and nor is she responsible for his asking her to marry him at the worst possible time, and in the worst possible place, the headstones of the recently deceased standing silently at a distance, like so many nosy neighbours. She had turned him down, rather forthrightly too, because he had thrown the proposal at her like he was asking for her threat assessment.

Were he to have first asked her to dinner, wined and dined her, kissed her at her front door, and then asked her ... well, she'd probably still have hesitated, and chosen no over yes. Ruth is not prone to making snap decisions about important things like marriage, although while she was sitting at home alone on the evening of Ros's funeral she had admitted to herself that she just _may_ have given Harry the wrong answer. Were he to ask her now - three months later - maybe her answer would be different.

She knows Harry had been hurt by her definitive `no', just as she is still to this day hurt that she'd had to say no. And that statement makes little sense, even to her.

She lifts her head to speak to Beth, only to see her hurrying into the kitchen, where the three men appear to be. As much as she'd love to be a fly on the kitchen wall, she feels obliged to seek out Harry, to offer him (hopefully) wise words, and even some comfort.

Ruth knocks on Harry's office door, and receiving no answer, she warily opens it to find he is not there. That can only mean he is in one of two possible places, and the men's loos are off limits to her, so she turns in the direction of the stairs.

* * *

"Yeah, well he was talking to you, and not to me," Dimitri says bluntly, not even looking at Alec, "but I got caught in the crossfire, so you owe me a drink after work."

Beth stands in the doorway, wondering if the testosterone levels in the kitchen will tip her into one of her snappy moods. "What did you two do to upset Harry?" she asks quietly, sidling into the cramped room.

" _Upset_ him?" Alec says, glaring at her. "He was looking for a fight, but the op we both stuffed up didn't help."

" _Both_?" Dimitri almost spits. "You were the one to turn off your comms."

"Actually, it was me," says a quiet voice from the corner of the room, where Tariq stares into his tea cup, perhaps wondering if it's big enough for him to climb inside and hide.

"What do you mean?" Alec asks, glaring towards Tariq.

"It was me who - accidentally, mind you - turned off comms. I hadn't meant to, and then by the time I discovered my mistake .. well, you know the rest."

They do. They certainly do.

"Then you owe Harry a hug," Beth says matter-of-factly.

"Not bloody likely," says Dimitri."

"He's hardly my type," says Alec.

"Isn't Ruth the one who needs to be hugging him?" observes Tariq.

"I think they're just friends," says Alec.

"Who'd want to hug Harry?" adds Dimitri.

All three sets of eyes eventually fall on Beth. "How should I know anything about them?" she says crossly.

"You live with Ruth," says Alec, "so if anyone knows anything about them, it'd be you."

"Sorry," she says weakly, "but I've seen nothing to suggest they are anything more than -"

"- shag buddies," says Dimitri, and Beth makes a face to suggest that he is way off the mark.

"I think they secretly love one another," Tariq says quietly.

"Whatever makes you say that?" replies Beth.

"It's the way they sometimes gaze at one another when the other isn't looking."

"Perhaps they're secretly married," adds Dimitri.

"Well if they are," says Beth, "they have no sex life at all, and they only ever see one another at work."

"She can still give him a hug when he needs one," suggests Tariq, his soft smile suggesting that he really believes they are secretly in love.

"I wouldn't say no to a hug from Ruth," Dimitri says, grinning.

" _Jesus_ ," says Beth, who then turns and leaves the kitchen, having not made herself a drink.

"What's wrong with her?" Dimitri asks, once Beth has left the room.

"Don't ask me," Alec replies, "I've never understood women."

"She thinks we're idiots," Tariq says, in a rare moment of insight, while the other two men stare at him like he'd just spoken in Icelandic.

* * *

Ruth stands at the balustrade beside Harry, close, but not touching. Both his hands are stuffed into his trouser pockets, and his jaw is set hard, while his lips form a straight line, his profile carved against the glow of early twilight. Harry is beyond pouting; he is beyond being upset. Ruth has no word for Harry at that moment, although to her, he appears unreachable.

"I know how much you must miss Ros," Ruth says at last, hoping that mentioning his former Section Chief might elicit a response from him. It doesn't, so she continues. "But, however bad you feel, shouting at your team is no way to motivate change in them."

"And for how long have you been leading my team, Ruth?" Harry asks, glaring at her, his eyes blazing.

"I know that ... irrational outbursts from you only incite resentment in your team."

"So now I'm irrational. I'm so glad you came all the way up here to tell me that. Whatever would I do without your unique insight?"

Seeing the anger in his eyes, Ruth almost turns to leave, but then she sees something else. She sees deep pain, and when Harry is white with anger, it is usually because he is in pain. She needs to reach him, and she believes she knows how. "Three months ago," she begins quietly and carefully, staring at the building across the street, "you said goodbye to Ros on the same day that you ... lost ... me. I would say that was just too many losses in one day, Harry."

It was a risk to say what she did, but it seems to have worked. Harry's shoulders lift as he sighs, and then he removes his hands from his pockets, and leans forward, resting his palms on the balustrade. He doesn't look at her as he speaks. "I lost you long before that day. I'd say I lost you the day you left London to go into exile."

"Not lost exactly. I'd say you may have .. misplaced me for a while."

When he turns his head to look at her, Ruth can see that the belligerent expression has been replaced by one of curiosity. "You'll have to explain that," he says, his voice gentle.

Ruth has always found Harry's direct gaze to be a bit like staring directly into the sun; it is too intense for her to be holding his gaze for long. She drops her eyes, but she can still feel him watching her. "After Ros' funeral, when you mentioned .. marriage .. I panicked." What she is about to say requires her to look at him, so she turns to face him, and lifts her eyes to his. "I said some things that I know hurt you -"

"It's all right, Ruth," he says quickly, and she can hear the clipped tone of his voice, telling her that he is already separating himself from his feelings. "I've come to terms with your response."

"I don't think you have. Had you, you wouldn't have shouted at Alec and Dimitri."

"They ruined a perfectly straight forward operation -"

"- and shouting at them won't change that." Ruth is surprised by how angry she is beginning to feel. She drops her eyes, and takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. When she again lifts her eyes to his, he has turned from the balustrade, and is closely watching her. "I told Beth that you probably need a hug."

Ruth had expected Harry to explode, to tell her she doesn't know him as well as she thinks she does, and that a hug won't change anything. He doesn't explode. She notices a softening around his mouth as he watches her while he chooses his words carefully. "Only if you're the one doing the hugging, Ruth," he says, and Ruth quickly breaks eye contact with him.

"Would you .. like me to hug you?" she asks quietly.

"Only if you mean it."

"If I mean to hug you, or if I mean what the hug ... represents?"

"Both," he breathes, "but chiefly the latter. I wouldn't want you to hug me out of pity or ... your obligation towards me as my senior analyst."

Ruth wonders is he taking the piss, but she barely cares. She is surprised to discover that she would rather like to stand close to Harry with her arms around him, and hopefully feel him wrap his arms around her. Slowly and carefully, she steps close to him, holding his eyes the whole time. "Are you ready?" she asks, somewhat unnecessarily, and he nods.

In the moment before she slides her arms around him and rests her head against his shoulder, Ruth sees fear in Harry's eyes, but she changes her habit of a lifetime, and doesn't analyse why he may be feeling afraid. No doubt he has his reasons, and just this once, they are none of her business. She has reached under his jacket to wrap her arms around him. His body is deliciously solid and warm, and she feels safe and secure in his embrace, as he very gently pulls her against him, and then rests both his hands against her back, his cheek against her temple.

Ruth decides to go with the moment, and to enjoy it while it lasts. She moves her head slightly so that she feels Harry's heart beating strongly, if not a little rapidly, beneath her cheekbone. Then, one of his hands begins rubbing her back, around and around in a regular, circular, hypnotic rhythm. A random thought suddenly pops into Ruth's head, and she decides that given Harry has such a good sense of rhythm, he'd probably be a wonderful lover. Just having that thought has her body warming, particularly in that part of her which is pressed against Harry's thighs. She wonders is he thinking the same thing.

"Are you feeling better?" she asks, glancing up at him.

He drops his eyes to hers, and nods. "Much," he says, and she notices how his brightly his eyes shine when he is happy.

What happens next is not her idea, but she is glad that Harry takes the risk, since she has taken enough risks for one night. As they watch one another, their arms still around each other, he drops his mouth to hers. Ruth had forgotten how soft are his lips, and how carefully he moves them over hers, searching for their natural place. She finds herself pressing her whole body against him, and the moan which she hears emanates from her own throat. When she parts her lips, he follows her lead, and the kiss becomes a prelude to something much more intimate, something they'll not be free to continue on the roof balcony.

When one of Harry's hands slides down her spine to her buttocks, Ruth knows that she'll not be spending the night in her own bed. There is no going back from this. With this one kiss they have crashed through the wall she had built from bricks formed of her own doubt, guilt and confusion, and tumbled together into the rest of their lives.

* * *

Beth has temporarily forgotten about Ruth, and opens the door to the roof balcony in search of Harry. What she sees has her almost gasping, but she manages to hold her breath, exhaling slowly, as she observes her boss and his analyst in a close embrace, kissing like the BBC has just announced that the end of the world is nigh. It is apparent that Harry needed more than a hug, and it's even clearer that Ruth is happy to go along with him, and if her instincts are correct, her flat mate will not be sleeping at home tonight.

Silently, Beth closes the door, turns and descends the stairs. As much as she longs to share with the others what she has just witnessed, she'll keep it to herself. Ruth and Harry deserve some privacy, so when Tariq calls out to her to invite her to the pub, she nods. "I can't think of a reason not to," she says, smiling.

"Are Harry and Ruth coming?"

Beth experiences momentary shock, but then, realising Tariq's question emanates from a place of innocence, she answers, "I don't think they'll be joining us at the George."

"Bummer," he says, opening the door for Beth.

"I know. We'll miss their cheery presence."

"Yeah. They'll be missing out on all the fun."

 _Or maybe not_ , Beth thinks, but keeps that thought to herself.

* * *

Just as Beth and Tariq prepare to leave the Grid, Ruth and Harry come up for air, their bodies thrumming, their faces flushed and smiling.

"That was lovely," she says softly.

"It was. Ruth ... I'd like you to have dinner with me, but I haven't booked anywhere, so ... I was thinking ..."

"Your place?" Harry nods. "I'm happy with that."

"We can pick up dinner on the way."

Ruth's first thought is who needs food when they have each other, but she is unable to speak, so she nods and smiles.

They walk down the stairs hand in hand, breaking contact once they are on the Grid. They needn't have bothered. The Grid is empty. Normally Harry would be irritated by everyone having taken an early minute, but on this night he is too happy to care what the team is up to, or where they are. He has his team right here - him and Ruth - and that is all that matters.

"Home?" he asks her.

"Home," is her reply.


End file.
